No wonder child protection in Haringay is such a mess when this kind of gobbledigook passes for English

[mabanana]

From the Guardian:
A conference in January will focus on improving child protection.
Sharon Shoesmith will be a key speaker. Her topic: 'Breaking Down Silos: Inspiring Ownership and Sharing Responsibility For Measuring Impacts and Outcomes Across Partnerships.'

Now, wtf is that supposed to mean? It actually makes me quite angry that this kind of doublespeak is being used. It cannot help people think clearly about what must be done. It is the kind of language that makes it OK to sack and legally silence whistleblowers who want to say, in plain English, something is wrong here and we are failing children.

That Private Eye snippet is interesting. Explains why all the headteachers came out in support of Shoesmith.

She may have been a very good person to have in charge of schools for all I know, but she's plainly NOT the right person to have in charge of protecting children.

Children's secretary's report into Baby P due out this week - expected to show serious failings, apparently. Wonder what it will have to say about 'this was best practice' Shoesmith.

SS is in crisis because investment in it does not win votes. until there is a public whoha about a specific story. then there is a little focus on it, and then that goes away and so does the funding. social workers battle away, on very low pay for the responsibility they have. the government has undermined child protection agencies and the ability of local authorities to undertake criminal proceedings against abusive/neglectful caregivers. that is my understanding of it (limited to talking to a friend who works as a barrister in this field and who said to me about a year ago that what the government is doing is going to inevitably result in the avoidable deaths of children).

mamazon can you shed some more light on this, I can't remember the specific piece of legislation she was talking about, but I know that family court judges are up in arms about it.

Possibly to do with the government whacking huge charges in court fees on LAs to bring care proceedings?

Your 'sources' Dittany are chosen to back up your already established opinions and then presented as 'facts'.

You choose to ignore and/or denigrate those posters who have experience in the social work field and who might not agree with your simplistic explanations. In fact we are 'irritating' or 'patronising'. Maybe we just don't agree with you, is that so hard to take?
Of course social services should be accountable for their mistakes as should any agency or individual involved in child protection.I hope that happens but not at the expense of the many committed and competent professionals (yes there are some!) who work in an incredibly difficult and ever changing area of work. You ever thought of doing it yourself?

that's it edam. costs too much. local authorities don't do it in cases when they should. sigh. sometimes i think marx was totally right: all boils down to money.

Sophable/Edam that is an interesting point the court costs have rocketed in the last year by £1000s.

Dittany-your stock response when you cannot think of anything intelligent to say is to use sarcasm this is a shame as it prevents people from taking you seriously.

You would love this thread to be full of posts agreeing with your every word. You even have the audacity to tell me how I should respond. Forget it-I will post however and whatever I please secure in the knowledge that MN is an open forum.

As I know you are unable to take on board opinions that are different to your own I will not waste my time picking out examples of my constructive critisism on this thread. Your low irritation threshold would be sorely challenged no doubt!

The cost of going to court for the authorisation to remove a chidl has rien from £150 to £4000. The New public law iniative (or something similar) as means that Local Authorities (social workers) have to demonstrate that all avenues have been tried to work with parents (i.e. parents are given help and support which ineviatable brings in to focus teh lack of resources available)

dittany, I'm not surprised.

since the divorce in social services, children's social services have been lumped in with education, under the banner of "children's services".

so either you will have a director with an education background in charge of social services, or a director with a social services background in charge of education.

I knew about the reorganisation of local government, with SS depts splitting between adult and children. But hadn't realised that meant you would have people in charge of SS who knew nothing about it. Very worrying.

well, IMHO, this is the problem with the endless demands for public inquiries and systemic change when serious incidents occur. Change is made so that services are seen to be responding to public demands.

In one London borough, the ASW function (response to requests for sectioning) has recently gone from a central system, to a localised one, following an inquiry into a death.

about 5 years previously, the service was localised, and was changed to a central system following a inquiry into a death.

Gothicmama that's an incredible leap in court costs and must surely have a huge impact on how swiftly children are taken out of desperate circumstances.

As a Case Manager the stress involved in providing 'proof of need' and deciding how to appropriate funds with maximum effect must be immense, especially when dealing with such emotive cases as those in child protection.

Dittany some of your posts have a very sarcastic slant, I know I am not mistaken. Well it only reflects badly on you so write whatever you please, far be it for me to dictate to you what to write.

dittany. there are 'real problems' believe it!

Yep you and your low irritation threshold again, Dittany. Well for the sake of the debate I think it would be healthy to 'move on' not because I feel the need to adhere to your commands.

Perkin - I see your point regarding the 'knee jerk' resposes to previous enquiries/cases. Well I certainly hope we do not have a 'sticking plaster' resolution to the baby P case.

if there was money and time put in place to action recommendations then public enqyiries would work the vast majority of enquiries report lack of communication between agencies and there is nearly always a lack of co-ordinated visits and peopel who do not have the time to do their job properly due to pressure from other cases they hold or becasue they are not given the time or skills to challenge care givers

The results of the independent review (ie Not the Sharon Shoesmith-whitewash serious case review) are out today and I understand from news reports before Ed Balls now.

Will be interesting ... I do hope they publish it. My MP (senior Labour) has, in a reply to my email, promised to read it.

The title makes complete sense to me in my job which gives me professional responsibility for such matters as those involved with this case.

"so either you will have a director with an education background in charge of social services, or a director with a social services background in charge of education."

So the services are lumped together? Interesting...sheds some light on the Haringey headteachers leaping to Shoesmith's defence after the Baby P case came to light. That struck me as only partially relevant to the case at best and insensitive at worst.